Disease, advancing age, and trauma can lead to changes in various bones, discs, joints, and ligaments of the body. Some changes and trauma often manifest themselves in the form of damage or degeneration to a spinal disc. This condition often results in chronic back pain, which can be anywhere from mild to severe. This pain can sometimes be eliminated by spinal fusion in which two adjacent vertebral bodies are jointed together after removing the intervening intervertebral disc. A prosthetic device is usually placed between the two adjacent vertebral bodies, in place of the removed disc, to fill the space left by the removed disc and to allow bone to grow between the two vertebral bodies.
More recently, spinal implants, referred to as posterior dynamic stabilizers, have been developed that allow motion between the adjacent vertebrae, thereby restoring normal function to the vertebrae. While these implants have been met with great success, they typically require an anterior surgical approach to be used to position the implant between adjacent vertebrae so as to avoid contact with the spinal cord. The implant sizes and instrumentation also dictate an anterior approach to the spine. Most anterior surgical approaches, however, tend to be invasive due to the nature and amount of the anatomy that needs to be displaced in order to successfully access the disc space. Moreover, the surgical procedure typically requires a general or vascular surgeon to expose the spine, and a spinal surgeon to perform the discectomy and implantation, thereby increasing the costs. Post-operative complications can also occur during an anterior surgical approach, including abdominal wall hematoma, vascular injury, retrograde ejection, and gastrointestinal injury.
Accordingly, there remains a need for improved methods and devices for posterior dynamic stabilization, and in particular for a full motion segment repair system and methods for implanting the same using a posterior or posterior-lateral approach.